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He was a surprise choice to take over from Matt Smith in 2013 and at 55 was the oldest actor to play the Doctor, alongside original William Hartnell.

As a youngster Peter, 58, had dreamed of being the Doctor and, as a teenager, wanted to run the Doctor Who fan club.

He said: “I love saying, ‘Time and Relative Dimensions in Space’ and ‘Bigger on the Inside’ and ‘They come from Skaro and will exterminate you’.”

With a hint of sadness, Peter added: “I think you’re never too old to enjoy saying ‘Tardis’ although it’s better to say ‘This is my Tardis’.

“They’re part of the fabric of the country – they’re in British popular culture, which is nice, but they will go on and on.”

Even the threat of a Dalek won’t prise the identity of the Thirteenth Doctor from Peter’s lips. There are rumours Phoebe Waller-Bridge could be the first female doctor. She is the bookies’ favourite to replace Peter ahead of Kris Marshall.

She played junior barrister Abby Thompson in the second series of Broadchurch. This could make sense as the new boss is Chris Chibnall, who created the whodunit favourite, which stars Tenth Doctor David Tennant.

As well as losing Peter, we are losing another Scot – Steven Moffat, 55, from Paisley – who is the lead writer and executive producer of the show.

But Steven is adamant that leaving the show after seven years at the helm is inconsequential compared to Peter’s departure.

Steven gave us the best Doctor Who baddies since the Daleks with time-sucking statues Weeping Angels and took over from Russell T Davies as showrunner in 2010.

But he insisted: “The fact that this was my last series had to be removed from the mix.

“The fact that this is Peter’s last series matters to the show – the fact that it’s mine doesn’t matter.

“I didn’t approach it all with regards to what I wanted to do with Doctor Who. More than anything what I wanted to do was begin again and if I had any sentimentality about leaving then it would be that – leave like it’s all just beginning.”

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It seems Steven wants to reboot the show, possibly because of some criticism levelled at him since he’s been in charge saying that plots have been confusing and there’s too much talk about things and not enough action.

Next Saturday’s first episode is called The Pilot.

Steven said: “Everything you need to know about Doctor Who is explained in that first episode – the cloaking device, the chameleon circuit, the ‘bigger on the inside’ – and you even get to see the Daleks.

“The idea was just to introduce Doctor Who properly – the story starts here. You need to know nothing before this point.”

Peter boils down the idea of Doctor Who which has been on the BBC since 1963 to this: “The show is down to the basic elements which are these fairly innocent but independent companions travelling with this mysterious creature from outer space who can travel in space and time and take them to the most amazing corners of the universe where they meet terrible monsters who try to kill them.

Peter wasn't in a rush to make the decision to leave Doctor Who (Image: Ray Burmiston/BBC)

"That’s at its very simplest level but obviously it’s more ­complex and there’s more to it than that but that’s pretty much what we do every week.

“Some seasons have been less like that but this season very much follows that model of delivering every week – the mysterious creature takes the companions to an exotic and dangerous place.”

The companion this time round is Pearl Mackie, who plays Bill Potts. A bit like Ninth Doctor’s companion Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, there is a modern edginess to Pearl, who takes over from Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman).

Bill is a modern companion. An odd thing about Doctor Who is that most of the characters who meet the Doctor and encounter alien invasions and alien planets don’t seem to have watched any movies. They seem surprised at what a time machine is or what an alien is.

So Bill asks the Doctor where the toilet is on the Tardis and what Tardis means in English if he’s from another planet. While Bill may be knowing, actress Pearl admitted she felt lost during her audition – which actually helped land her the part.

She said: “The first time I met Peter was at the recall for this job in the hotel. It was mental – ­obviously I was sworn to secrecy so I couldn’t tell anyone what I was doing or where I was going so I turned up to the hotel in a baggy T-shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of bright yellow trainers.

Playing the Doctor was a dream job for Peter (Image: Ray Burmiston/BBC)

“We read the first scene and we read it sitting down. It’s one of the first scenes in the first episode.

“Peter was running around pressing buttons and pulling levers that aren’t there and I didn’t know what was going on. But luckily Bill’s supposed to be doing that in the scene anyway so it worked in my favour.”

Londoner Pearl graduated from theatre school in 2010 and her biggest role to date since has been in one episode of Doctors.

She had no idea quite how big Doctor Who is.

“I didn’t know it was one of the widely watched shows on Christmas day in America,” she said.

“On Twitter I get messages from fans in languages I don’t even understand, which is great but I wish I knew what they were saying. Going to Comic Con was amazing – there were people dressed up as me already.”